House of Representatives To Give Staff Free Peloton Memberships - Slashdot
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House of Representatives To Give Staff Free Peloton Memberships
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Under the contract with Peloton, which takes effect May 18, the government will pay the company $10,000 up front and $10 per month for each staffer who chooses to enroll, according to Fox Business. With high participation among House staffers, the monthly cost of the contract for taxpayers could exceed $100,000 per month. [...] In March 2021, Peloton hired an in-house lobbyist and two lobbying firms to influence Congress on issues including "government programming to support health and wellness of Americans."
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Giving all eligible members a roll of gaffer tape - to sick over their mouth when they got the hungry pangs, would be cheaper.
The money would be better spent setting up soup lines for the homeless and needy.
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Exactly.
The US of A is a plutocracy. Always has been. The crypto-fascist flavor came a bit later though - roughly after the end of WW2 - because it took the Italians to invent fascism first, FDR to convince Americans that they should fund the military-industrial complex with their taxpayer's money second, and Americans to forget they should stop when the war was over third.
Uncle Sam is no more a democracy than the USSR was. The difference is, the USSR got it so damn wrong that they didn't even have
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Hey look, it's a meeting of the "say true things about the USA and get modded down" society! Let me play! America has been a plutocratic oligarchy from its founding, which is why the landed rich white males who founded it gave the vote only to other landed rich white males, and created a system in which the people in the most populous states have less voting power than the people in other, less popular states that people tend to flee from because they are such agonizingly stifling, culture-devoid places to
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In my household I consider the wants and needs of all the members but they do not get to outvote the guy who brings home the money and keeps the lights on. Voting by those with no skin in the game is why we have people demanding their student loans be paid by others.
Sorry you have the misfortune of living in a federation of states instead of a Greek democracy. I know how you guys just love to embrace the tyranny of the majority unless it violates your own personal social ideals.
California just lost popula
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There is no such thing. Every person who lives here is involved. And if you do not count their votes then they have no motivation to play by your rules. Torches and pitchforks, and may you bleed and burn.
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Because it's inherently expensive to leave, and then the US government makes it even more expensive, because slavery never ended and they consider us their property.
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It's ironic that by supporting The Message you get to spout retardation and not get modded down, but by pointing it out I probably will be.
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It's ironic that you think your comment made sense.
I haven't been modded down yet but the cowardly shits who commonly mod me down for criticizing capitalism often come along and do it after the discussion has died down so that the moderation won't be corrected by others.
If you disagree with some part of my comment, feel free to attempt rebuttal. I'll provide sources.
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I've never been one to advocate for more government spending, but this seems like a pretty run of the mill corporate perk. If they were handing out free vacations to Hawaii, that might be worth getting pissed off about, but fitness programs for employees are pretty routine benefits, and in context, not even very expensive to provide.
Not worth getting excited about.
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The House of Representatives [...] will provide taxpayer-funded Peloton memberships to all of its staff, costing taxpayers roughly $100,000 per month.
$100,000 per month, that's a lot!
$10 per month for each staffer who chooses to enroll, according to Fox Business. With high participation among House staffers, the monthly cost of the contract for taxpayers could exceed $100,000 per month.
Oh, okay, so $100,000 per month is the hypothetical maximum. And $10 per month is a very small amount of overhead expense for a staff member. And there is no information in the article about whether this money was already allocated for employee benefits, in which case it would cost taxpayers $0 extra.
Of course, the story comes from Fox, who are trying to make this out like an indefensible luxury that will bankrupt the country while the rest of us starve from inflation.
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First, I didn't say anything about current inflation rates being defensible. From my reading, the inflation has more to do with big businesses who are making record profits and still increasing prices using inflation as an excuse, but that's beside the point.
I'm not saying Peloton was a good choice. I'd certainly prefer go out and actually ride my bike for exercise rather than pay $40 per month to sit on a stationary bike and have some fitness goon "encourage" me from a tablet on the handlebars. But the House has a certain budget for employee benefits, including fitness benefits. Nobody is going to get "impeached" for voting for this because it wasn't a bill on the floor of the House that members voted for; it was a contract entered into by benefits administrators who decided (perhaps as a result of lobbying) that this was a good use of employee wellness benefits dollars.
Employers do this all the time. My employer has contracts with various service providers that so I can get access for reduced cost. I don't use most of them. I get a small discount on my phone bill because of one of them. It's a very typical deal to offer a 'perk' to employees.
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I'm a bit baffled by your post. The spending on infrastructure by the Federal government is exactly what is earmarked by Congress for it. Quantitative easing (as approved by Congress) doesn't change that.
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This should have been open municipal initiative, to be right, instead of the institutional. Now it is just corruption in disguise.
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It's corruption, and therefore bad, but such a trivially bad thing compared to much of the corruption that's going on that one has to wonder why it was even mentioned. And the mentioned price tag is not likely to be approached. (IIRC, my health plan gives me free access to some exercise club, but I've never joined.)
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Good point. If it were municipal, it would make a lot more sense.
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I don't know why I'm arguing about this with an AC, but Slashdot started in 1997. I started lurking in 1998, and the date of my first logged-in comment is 2009. Now, I'll admit that I don't remember exactly when I created my account, but I'm guessing it was around the time of that comment. But if the AC has better information about when I created my account, I will concede the point.
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I.e. About 1.67 Big Macs, [mc-menu.com] per month, per (participating) employee.
Watch out folks!
People working for you 24/7, making $20-30k and paying upward of $20k in rent [businessinsider.com] MAY be getting fit (if not fat) - ON YOUR DIME!!!
That is, when they are not DoorDashing to cover the rent or skulking about catered briefings for leftover snacks just to cover those pesky daily calorie requirements.Biggest economy in the world, folks. $19.5 trillion and counting!
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...as a perk. TIFTFY. $10 per month sounds pretty cheap to me. Even at that price, I hope it includes more than just rusty, refurbished exercise bikes.
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If this were an actual gym membership I would agree. The fact that this is being done with an over-funded startup that's about to go bankrupt... I don't know why they're doing this, but it won't last too long and won't cost too much in the end. It's just an odd choice.
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Agree. Don't govt agencies need to go through some kind of overseen procurement process for this kind of thing so that the tax payer knows they're getting a good deal?
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So you want some sort of process to know whether a $10 a month membership is a good deal when the minimum Peloton membership is $12.99 a month?
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Riding your bike outside, walking, and jogging are all free (for now)! Congressional staffers are too good for those activities?
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I wouldn't do those things in DC either.
Arguably that means DC is a shithole and they're not doing their jobs, but the point remains. It's literally not safe for congressional staffers to be doing those things around DC — which not only has high crime rates, but whose violent crime rates have recently increased.
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Because DC is HOT, a lot of the time.
Lots of DC is plenty safe, but there's less shade than you'd want in those safe areas.
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I'd have thought the heat during summer was enough reason not to go jogging in the summer.
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Swimming and weights are all free--wait that's not true. If only there was some sort of business where people could pay a company to use a pool and lift weights. But I suppose people cannot do whatever exercise they want. They have to exercise how you want them to exercise.
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I'm always suspicious with companies like Peloton selling expensive at-home exercise equipment, especially when they get professional athletes with movie star looks to portray actual users. They got into that good shape by going to a gym or outside the home for physical workout/activity. I bet most of Pelotons sold are under used (like most at-home exercise equipment), too much distractions at home to be active with a workout.
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Well maybe. I'm sure that will be true, but bear in mind their whole thing has been to be the social distancing alternative to a regular gym during the pandemic. So they probably don't have the same rate of discarded equipment that would be the case in more typical circumstances. If we ever get back to 'normal' then all the Peloton stuff gets pushed to the side. As you say.
This is probably what HR was thinking as far as staff perks as well. It can be beneficial to have a workforce in good physical shape,
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> an indefensible luxury that will bankrupt the country while the rest of us starve from inflation.
They could just take it out of the $40B they're printing for Ukraine (further inflating the monetary supply).
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> I don't know why they're doing this
There are usually two factors. Peloton is desperate and somebody called in a political favor are the obvious two. Follow the money, or in this case the initial memo. Somebody could FoIA this.
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People who work out improve their mental acuity, so it's probably worth investing the $100,000 of taxpayers money to make it easy for people who work in government to access exercise.
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How much on-premises gym would $100k per month buy and sustain?
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Given that they'd probably have to break new ground and add square footage to implement one, a whole fuck of a lot more than this. Instead of being measured in hundreds of thousands, it would be hundreds of millions.
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Not hundreds of millions, not if done reasonably, but in the millions, yes.
OTOH, WHERE are they going to put it? Perhaps your "hundreds of millions" wouldn't be that much of an overestimate. It would be reasonable if they had to build a new building. (MANY decades ago it cost 1.5 -2 million to build a new student dorm for about 200 students, in a place where land was cheaper, and there was a parking lot available to build on. There's been a lot of inflation since then, though.)
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Wait, what does that have to do with anything? It's US federal government, it's not going to be reasonable no matter who is in charge.
Yes, or even just a new wing, which is just a new building with one less exterior wall:)
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There's a nice spot just east of the capitol building that would be perfect. It's already government owned, and not being used for anything important. In honor of history, they can call the new fitness center, "supreme court fitness center." That'll be great.
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They already have several, you utter moron. The Rayburn building has a gym for staffers. The House and Senate each have a gym for members of Congress. (Former members can pay to retain access.)
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Much like any gym membership, it'd only get used for the first three months, so investing in a gym might represent poor value.
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How is buying an underutilized, gadget-laden (and thus more failure prone), walled-garden, private exercise bike any better?
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All these staffers will need massively overpriced exercise bikes to avail of the subscription.
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I would suppose staffers have to purchase the bike themselves. So it seems like a Peloton arranged a discount membership to the House that not every staffer can use. Meh.
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Not compared to the tax payer funded cocaine reportedly funded by republicans.
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Meh. Cocaine is bad for you directly, but can made you more active, which is exercise.
I think the sex orgies are probably the best way to get at least the Republican staffers in shape... They won't get invited if they're fat.
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The duly elected representative Cawthorn who is being now subject to a witch hunt by his fellow republicans for telling the truth
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All these staffers will need massively overpriced exercise bikes to avail of the subscription.
Perhaps some Peloton bikes are being installed in the gym that Congress provides for its staffers?
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How long before Congress runs out of Other People's Money?
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They always get more every April 15th.
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Are we assuming it means "($10,000 up front) and $10 per month for each staffer who chooses to enroll", or : "($10,000 up front and $10 per month) for each staffer who chooses to enroll" ?
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That's my question. I don't see any logical argument for a one-time cost, so I worry it's monthly.
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Both the DNC & GOP are crony fascist organizations that throw the middle classes under the bus for crony fascism every time, the USGov is circus run by two gangs of evil clowns
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Every US election, I get reminded of "Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders" and how you can pull the lever on the dumbness machine from ON to ON. It's a lot like that.
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Would be interesting which of the unemployable moochers first bought a load of dumped Peloton stocks. Start with the spongers that got this bill on the road.
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.. maintenance - that is only for the Washington DC athletic center and that is only for the increase in maintenance, not the total cost of operation. Tax payers are unable to recognize the cost, waste and where they are coming from and how to do the math. The Pentagon spends nearly a $ trillion dollars on defense a year.
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All of us get to pay for it, one way or another.
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There's no excuse for running a FOX story without a giant disclaimer mentioning that they are liars and propagandists for the right
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I accept your terms provided anything by CNN, Washington Post or the New York Times gets the same kind of disclaimer for the left.
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Tell us again about Hunter's laptop.
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Instead of a Gym membership they given an over-priced monthly subscription to a specific service internet video service focused on exercise.
Are they buying them the Peloton, or do they expect the staff to pay the thousands of dollars to buy the equipment?
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"Free" things from the government are not free, they're taxpayer funded.
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Can heart attacks can free the younger generation from the Boomers before it is too late?
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This is just blatant misuse of funds and the house should be prosecuted for fraud. There is no valid reason to give the staff a free Peleton subscription, most probably won't even use it. And this is just the tip, correction, grain of the iceberg in how much taxpayers money is thrown away by the government. We should really sweep the government for these kinds of misuse of taxpayers money.
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